


Kansas Afternoons

by Philosophizes



Series: Bad Decisions Series Backstory Fics [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosophizes/pseuds/Philosophizes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenkins Corner, Kansas, was everything Ivan had ever wanted- sun, sky, sunflowers, and love. Told in a series of vignettes over the years.</p>
<p>(A part of the backstory for my fic <i>With Sorrow We Accept Our Fortunes</i>. Set after the events of <i>Human</i>- so, Ivan's life in America after he stops being Russia.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kansas Afternoons

Ivan Braginski’s first breath of America- the way he was counting it, anyway- came after the _click_ of his new truck door opening, and was the settling air of his new truck, the sun-baked dust and gasoline-fumed afternoon in a graveled parking lot in Jenkins Corner, Kansas.

The parking lot belonged to Randolph’s Farm and General, which was his first stop before he drove through town to the old farmhouse he’d bought. The store’s interior satisfied him on some deep level- the bell on the door had just the right amount of tinkle, the wood just the right amount of worn polish smell, just the right hint of dust and earth, burlap and motor oil. He went straight to the gardening section and stocked up, going for the seed. There were flowers and vegetables, herbs and root crops…

The cashier eyed him as he walked up to register, the gardener’s bag he’d selected stuffed full of seed packets and a bag of seed potatoes tucked under his other arm.

“No tools?” she asked as she rung him up.

Ivan smiled broadly at her.

“No need; I will make them myself.”

The cashier stopped momentarily to raise an eyebrow at him.

“ _Make_ them?”

“Oh yes,” Ivan agreed. “I gave away the ones I had when I packed to move. This is a new country, new land- it deserves new tools.”

“Where’d you move from?” the woman asked as she repacked the seed packets in the bag.

“Russia,” Ivan told her. “I have bought the farmhouse on Farrier’s Road.”

“ _You’re_ the one who bought the Forge House?”

“ _Da._ It was just what I wanted. I am going there immediately.”

“Huh,” she replied as she pressed the touchscreen buttons to accept his credit card. “Well, we’re neighbors then, of a sort. Abigail Obermier; I live at the family sunflower farm.”

“Ivan Braginski. Sunflowers, you say?”

* * *

The decision to buy the house on Farrier’s Road had come of five considerations.

One; it was out of the center of town, but well within walking distance of it.

Two; it was a nice old house that needed just a little care to keep going in nice working order.

Three; it was on a large plot of land, big enough for a good-sized yard with room to spare for a nice large subsistence garden.

Four; it had a large shed, perfect for a workshop and tool storage.

Five; it was right next to a sunflower farm.

Ivan was working in the shed, which he’d strengthened and enlarged just a little to accommodate a woodworking bench, a gardening table, and the newly-outfitted forge he’d bought with the money he’d made selling off the majority of his old one, in Russia, when Abigail Obermier appeared to him again. She was carrying a cookie tin, and looked rather startled to find him hammering out a piece of hot iron.

“You weren’t kidding about making your own tools,” she said as he reheated the metal and started to shape it, bending the tongs of the rake into place.

“I do not joke about my work,” Ivan told her. “Iron and steel are hard, but they are forgiving if you treat them right. Gardening does not forgive, period. I take much pleasure from it, but I do not joke.”

“Wow, okay,” Abigail said. “Well, I’ve got sugar cookies with sprinkles and everything. If your metal will forgive you long enough to come eat some.”

“Oh, it will wait,” he assured her as he bent the last tong into alignment with the others. He gestured to the side of the shed wall with his hammer, where his finished tools were hanging. “Those were not done all in one go, after all.”

Abigail inspected the tools he’d made- trowels and shovels mostly, at this point, with definite interest. He’d ordered good stout, seasoned wood for the handles, and shaped and sanded and stained them lovingly.

“You’re one of those master craftsmen people, aren’t you?” she asked. “Do you sell your stuff? It’s pretty _and_ functional.”

“Ah, pretty is well and good,” Ivan said, hanging his hammer up and untying his leather apron. “But you have not yet seen _beautiful,_ Ms. Obermier. My beauties, wood and metal- _those,_ I sell.”

“Can I see?”

* * *

There was an evening, eventually, a humid one with a cooler breeze in late August, the week before the local schools were supposed to start up, that found Ivan and Abigail on the bench swing on Ivan’s covered porch. The stars were coming out, and there was a faint glow on the far horizon from light pollution in the city, far away. Abigail was having cold beer, and Ivan the last of the vodka he’d brought with him.

“Farthest I’ve ever traveled is Chicago,” Abigail was saying. “I did some classes out there a few semesters. I thought I might stay there, but I like it here too much to really leave. ‘S funny- I used to want to be a sailor.”

“I have been across the world more times than I remember,” Ivan said loudly, brandishing his vodka. “But there is not a place I enjoy more than Middle America. _‘Flyover country’_ , one of my colleagues called it. Calls it. He is a Yankee, and thinks the proper use for country roads is drag racing.”

“Even better than Russia?”

Ivan could feel the weight he could always forget under the great blue spread of the sky settling heavy in his bones again, this night.

“There was nothing for me in Russia,” he said morosely, hearing his accent thicken. “There has been nothing in Russia for many years. Centuries there have been, in Russia, of trying to imitate, to catch up- centuries of staring towards the setting sun and chasing an impossible Western dream. Russia is cold and pain and corruption, slow dry rot, and I am glad to be rid of it. I do not like Russia.”

He dropped his head back over the top of the bench and pushed the swing with one foot.

“I cannot reach inside my head and scrub its memory from my mind, nor reach inside my heart and excise it like a tumor. It is sunk in blood and my bones, the muscle I have built working for it and the tears I have shed over it. I cannot do these things, and even on the days where drunken stupor seems the only solution- on the days when all the vodka I could buy _was_ no solution, but all I could do- even on those days, I was never certain I wanted to be rid of the pain it brings me. I love Russia. Russia is me.”

Ivan stared up at the stars; the ones he’d been the first to reach.

“But I do not _like_ Russia.”

* * *

The winter snows were calf-height and Ivan waded through them gladly, enthusiastically puffing his breath to see it condense in the air between the falling flakes.

He pushed his way into the white-covered bushes, and some of the children on the other side of the window started to giggle as they snuck looks at him- badly snuck, in the way of small, amused children.

He knocked on the glass.

Inside the classroom, Abigail, who was giving a talk about the importance of washing your hands and wearing scarves in the cold weather, jumped slightly; then put her hands on her hips before striding over to the window and opening it.

“Ivan!” she exclaimed, trying to go for scolding and falling just short.

“ _Lapochka!_ ” he greeted her happily, and swung one leg over the sill and into the classroom. “It is good to see you!”

“You can’t come in this way!” Abigail protested. “This is a violation of safety procedures!”

“Mrs. Howard,” Ivan asked the elderly woman sitting behind the teacher’s desk. “You are the vice principle of this school- am I a danger to these students?”

“I would be frankly astounded if it were true,” Mrs. Howard answered.

“Ah, you see?” Ivan said to Abigail. “We are excused. I have brought you flowers.”

Abigail took the bouquet of sunflowers so Ivan wouldn’t have to hold them any longer.

“But it’s November!”

“I have a tiny greenhouse,” Ivan reminded her, holding his thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart to demonstrate. “Heat lamps in the sunroom. A wonderful combination. I grow orchids as well.”

“ _You_ came in through the _window_ ,” one of the children said reprovingly. “Nobody lets _me_ come in through the window.”

“Indeed, little one,” Ivan said. “For you are quite small still, and I am very large. I do not have _fall_ through the window to get to the other side.”

“Ms. Obermier was teaching us about ‘the importance of disease prevention’!” another of the students announced, clearly pleased with herself for remembering the exact phrase.

“A most serious matter,” Ivan told them solemnly. “Diseases are terrible things that must be treated as swiftly as possible. You will all be much better off if you do not catch any at all. I will not say that you do not want to know what viruses and bacteria can do, for you are children and I find that children delight in all manner of disturbing things, but I _will_ say that sickness generates a level of foulness that I sincerely hope you shall never experience.”

“Are you talking about the plague?” a third child asked. “I know _all about_ the plague!”

“Child, you know _nothing_ of the plague,” Ivan said, and proceeded to describe the multiplicitous effects of the bacterium _Yersinia pestis_ in their gory detail, much to the nefarious delight of the class.

* * *

“Mariah Boone is going to be in the hospital for _weeks,_ ” Abigail fretted. “And James Grenville _always_ catches every bug that goes around. No one wants to come out here from the county and teach Spanish, but nobody _here_ knows Spanish! Deena doesn’t want to get into another argument with the people from county, because we already have enough trouble getting subs as it is-”

“ _Sé española_ ,” Ivan told her. “ _Français a également_.”

“You know Spanish and French? What do you need to know Spanish and French for in Russia?”

“I am a man of many parts, _lapochka_ , you have not learned? If I were qualified to teach, I would soothe all your worries and come to work with you to replace your language teachers,” Ivan promised, bending to kiss her hand and hold it to his mouth, so he could through his eyelashes at her. “ _‘What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world!’_ ”

“The upside,” Abigail said, blushing furiously. “Of nobody at county wanting a whole lot to do with us, is that we can do a lot of things we’re not technically supposed to do. I’ll get you copies of Mariah’s and James’ schedules, and we can switch you out with teachers that have off-periods every other day. So make sure you plan for a day of learning from you for the students, and then a day of worksheets.”

* * *

“Seems awfully classy for _‘some sorta Russian hippie’_ ,” Abigail’s father pronounced upon first meeting Ivan, shortly after Ivan had finished filling in for the high school band teacher and carefully replaced his chello on its stand. “Got a lot of money, too, buy that house and keep that forge without a proper job for so long. Can’t do that on a substitute teacher’s salary.”

_“Dad,”_ Abigail protested quietly, embarrassed. “I called him a hippie _ages_ ago! I hadn’t really gotten to know him yet!”

“Smart, too,” Mr. Obermier continued. “Lots of education you got there, son, to play like that and teach three separate courses at the school. And apprenticeships for metalworking don’t come cheap. What did you do before you emigrated?”

“I was a political aide,” Ivan said carefully, and noticed Abigail stiffen at her father’s question, easily hiding the fact that he’d noticed to any observers. He and Abigail had decided that Ivan’s past was information to be given out on a strictly need-to-know basis- and Mr. Obermier did not, yet, need to know.

Mr. Obermier looked hard at him.

“Are you on the run from your government?”

“If I am, no one has told me,” Ivan said. “And if I am, I will handle it without involving others.”

“Hm,” Mr. Obermier grunted, looking perhaps grudgingly convinced. It was certainly conceivable, looking at Ivan, that he could handle something like a squad of Russian special ops.

Ivan thought that Mr. Obermier didn’t believe his _‘political aide’_ story, and thought that _he_ was one of those special ops people he could imagine from Soviet spy novels.

“Well, if you’re going to get married, you’ll get no problem from me.”

* * *

Abigail didn’t think she’d ever seen Ivan happier. Her husband had their new little boy bouncing up and down in his arms as he walked around the room, beaming, speaking delightedly in Russian to the newborn. It was the same sort of smile she’d seen, in lesser degrees, on him when he stood outside in the middle of a snowstorm and declared the weather to be delightful; or stripped to the waist in the summer and stretched out on the roof to bask in the sun after a day of work in the sunflower fields, or helping out on a neighbor’s farm.  It was part of his charm.

“C’mere, Papa Bear,” she said quietly, reaching out with one hand.

Ivan flopped down on the bed next to her, making the springs creak and the mattress bob up and down.

“That is new,” he remarked about the pet name, slipping an arm under her and snuggling up.

“Well, I’ve got two big Russian men in my life now,” Abigail told him. “And only one of them’s a Papa.”

Ivan chuckled, and tickled their son’s cheek with a finger.

“ _Medvezhonok_ ,” he said fondly. “So small, so precious.”

“Are you going to teach him Russian?” she asked her husband.

Ivan’s laugh was booming and throaty, and just as lovely as the evening she’d first heard it, at the local farm shop.

“I could hardly resist!” he declared. “To grow up without your heritage is a depressing thing, _lapochka_. I would not have that for our Anatoli.”

“Blini and borscht every day?” Abigail asked cheekily.

“Not _every_ day,” Ivan said, and they stared up at the wooden beams of the old farmhouse ceiling together, listening to Anatoli gurgle. “I was thinking Christmas in January, and _pysanky_ at Easter.”

“Look here, mister, Christmas is in _December._ ”

“Bah, _Westerners!_ ” he scoffed back, playfully. “I will never understand why Epiphany is so foreign a concept to you. He will open presents from you and your family in December, and me and my family in January. You see? It works.”

Anatoli burped loudly, and some regurgitated milk dribbled from his mouth.

“And that one’s on you,” Abigail told him. “Good job with burping duty.”

* * *

The kitchen was warm with morning light, and Anatoli had been toddling for a while now. The radio was playing, and the tune was lively.

Ivan left off making blini to stick Ana’s little feet on top of his, and hold his tiny hands, and dance around the room. After a time, he caught sight of his wife leaning in the kitchen doorway, watching, a small smile on her face.

Ivan twirled his son around and smiled right along with her.

* * *

The car that came up the drive to the Forge House was rather nicer than what most people in Jenkins Corner usually went for. It was clean and sparkling where it wasn’t dusty, and the man who bounced out of the passenger’s seat was just as boisterous as ever. The children tumbled out the back and started dashing about, taking full advantage of the wide open space. Anatoli jumped off the porch to meet his new associates.

“Alfred!” Ivan called from the porch.

Alfred ran up the steps to grab him in an enthusiastic hug.

_“Dude,”_ he said. “A whole farm? Really?”

“The sunflowers are my wife’s,” Ivan informed him. “The garden is mine, and the workshop. Come, I will show you.”

At the end of the garden, where the property they owned outright terminated into a gorgeous view of undeveloped fields, Alfred stuck his hands on his hips and looked around.

“Right proper homestead you’ve got here,” he said, laying on the Kansas accent thickly.

Ivan snorted and nudged him towards the house.

* * *

The church lights were spilling out onto the snow, and patches flashes brightly white against the dark gray where cars were starting to drive away and the headlights shone, tires crunching. Ivan was at the end of the reception line, accepting congratulations on the schoolchildren’s performances, instrumental and vocal.

Abigail bumped up against his side, having retrieved her coat from the coat room, and the shine of light on the necklace he’d forged for her made him smile just a little wider.

“Mr. Braginski!” one of the older students called from across the room.

“You _do_ have homework tomorrow!” he called back. “ _Vse uprazhneniya, Pyotr_!”

“ _No eto pochti Rozhdestvo_!” Peter complained.

“And if I assign the homework now, then you will have none over break,” Ivan reasoned with him. He wasn’t particularly worried- the boy was one of his better Russian students, but excellence was a good goal. “Now go do it, I am certain you did not do it before you came here and inevitably tired yourself out. That was bad planning, _Petka_.”

“ _Da, gospodin_ Braginski,” Peter agreed dutifully, and tucked his flute case more securely under his arm.

Ivan’s smile went a little lopsided at that, and he reached down to put an arm around his son.

“Did you enjoy yourself, Ana?”

“I liked how you made everyone else learn the Russian for _‘Silent Night’_ ,” his son admitted. “It was funny to watch them, especially when they weren’t saying it quite right.”

_“Ana,”_ his mother scolded.

* * *

The kitchen smelled of vodka.

It had been a long time since Abigail had seen her husband drunk; and certainly that had never been in the middle of the day. But here he was, just in from the garden where he’d gone to work before dawn that morning, completely gone.

“Ivan?” she asked.

“It’s cold,” he said slowly. “So cold. Ice in my bones and snow in my blood. I could not believe, Abigail, that if I breathed on the sunflowers, that they would not go black with frostbite, wither and collapse.”

“Are you sick?” she worried, coming closer to check his temperature. “Getting drunk isn’t how you handle getting sick-”

“It is my _people_ who are sick!” Ivan spat. He gestured widely with the bottle. “My government! The land!”

She knew what that phrasing meant.

“Ivan, honey,” Abigail said, pulling a chair up next to his. “You’re not Russia any longer. It’s okay.”

“Ha!” Ivan barked. “Not Russia, you say?”

He jabbed a finger to his head.

“I can _hear_ them! Their thoughts and their words and all their little petty things! This-”

The smack to his chest distorted the word strangely.

“-is Moscow, not a heart! The movement of people and money and goods and information, not blood! Life there goes _th-thum th-thum th-thum_ , I in time with it!”

“Ivan-”

“I thought,” he said bitterly. “That when I died my body would go to the Kansas ground, to the farming dirt and the bloom of the flowers in spring. But it will be pulled apart by my people, in the end, torn by souls straining away from the idea of me, running towards another. I will evaporate on the wind, and no one will raise a gravestone to my memory, only claim my buildings and my monuments for their own.”

“You’re my husband,” Abigail said firmly. “You’re the Russian teacher and the orchestra instructor at the high school where our son will be, in a few years. You sell artisan metalwork at the fairs in the same booth as the sunflower seeds. You are _not_ Russia.”

He stared her down.

“You do not tell me what I am,” Russia said; and then Abigail could _feel_ it, the weight of power, a sinkhole of attention, and she was skittering around the edges, attached to the center of the pull she couldn’t dare to look at straight on, attached just enough that she couldn’t escape, but there was no jerk on the leash, no pull inward so she would fall away from the warmth and the sunlight of the Kansas afternoon.

Russia closed his eyes and titled his head back, expression heavy. The gravitational weight went away.

“Do not come with me to Moscow, _lapochka_ ,” he begged quietly. “I would not see you curl up against the creeping frost of my unhappiness, burning black like the sunflowers. Stay. Stay. Stay.”


End file.
